Jury’s still out on SGX’s SPAC play a year later

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Hello readers,

Today’s featured piece describes the frenzy of special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) in the US as starting in 2021 with “explosive growth” in new listings, followed by “a rapid cool-off in the second half of the year.”

This description reminds me of a concept recently touched upon by Tech in Asia’s Daily Newsletter: fads.

While it may be harsh to label SPAC plays by businesses as a fleeting trend, there are at least eight companies in the US that probably wished they hadn’t hopped on the blank-check bandwagon. They all eventually went bust after entering public markets via the SPAC route.

While matters aren’t so dire in Singapore, that’s likely because these blank-check firms are yet to get off the ground. None of the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) three listed SPACs have acquired any target firm yet, but they still have about two years to finish the job.

Each of the three SPACs hit the city-state’s mainboard exchange under a new SPAC listing framework, which sought to provide Southeast Asian startups with a credible alternative to IPOs.

However, with no new SPACs following in the footsteps of these three listings – which took place in January last year – the jury is still out on the success of SGX’s regime for SPACs.

Read on to delve into the finer details on why it’s too soon to write off SGX’s SPAC initiative despite its promising start quickly losing steam.

Today we look at:

• The current state of SGX’s SPAC experiment
• The US$10 million pre-series A funding round of an Indonesian auto-financing startup
• Other newsy highlights such as Y Combinator’s shifting priorities after downsizing its late-stage investing team

— Shravanth

P.S.: If you’re an entrepreneur looking for funding, fill out this form to get your company featured on our list of fundraising startups.

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Jury’s out

Vroom vroom… Broom

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